The Christmas Star
by voldemortsgirl
Summary: Andrew and Monica help a young firefighter discover the true meaning of Christmas. Now complete!
1. Chapter One

Chapter One

_-84 Brewer Avenue; December 23-_

Mandy Lambrych answered the call of a four-alarm fire that night with a heavy heart. She had seen these cases before. A family would leave the lights on the Christmas tree turned on, and the whole house would burn to the ground. When the five trucks from Station 9 arrived at 84 Brewer Avenue, they knew they were too late to save the house. Mandy pulled on her helmet and entered the burning building, listening and watching for any signs of life. She stumbled through what was left of the ravaged living room. She stubbed her toe on something and looked down. A charred brass star, presumably the one from atop the family's tree, lay on the floor. Mandy picked it up and put it in her pocket. Straining her eyes, she could see the remains of Christmas gift-wrap lying singed on the floor. Mandy suddenly stopped and straightened. She listened, hearing what almost sounded like a child's cry.

"Is someone there?" Mandy yelled through the roar of the fire.

Another cry. Mandy stumbled through the living room, into what seemed to be a narrow hallway. She struggled to locate the source of the desperate cries. She pushed open a door, and grimaced at the sight of the smoke that poured out. Somewhere in the living room, a beam crashed to the floor. Mandy closed her eyes, knowing she was running out of time. Another beam fell. Mandy ran into the room, now desperate to find survivors. She ran her hands into what could only be a bed. She dug at her side until she found her flashlight. She shined it on the faces that lay in the bed. Surprise, fear, exhaustion. It was hard for her to tell the expressions on their faces, but she knew they were gone. She turned out of the room. The flames were engulfing the hallway now too, making it hard for Mandy to push her way to the next door. It was a child's bedroom. As soon as she opened the door, a beam fell only a few feet behind her. She ran into the room, frantically searching for a sign of life.

"Are you in here?" she yelled.

Mandy heard what could have been a coughing sob, and she ran towards the noise. Her knees collided with the frame of a bed. She bent down and shone the light on the bed. It was empty, but the covers were disheveled and messy. She kneeled down and looked under the bed. A small child lay under the bed, covered in ash and dust. Her body trembled slightly. Mandy reached under the bed and pulled the little girl out. The child looked up at Mandy.

"Where's Mommy?" she asked.

"Shh." Mandy cooed. "It's all right."

Mandy smoothed out the little girl's hair as the beam above them broke away and crashed down.


	2. Chapter Two

Chapter two 

_-Community General Hospital; December 20-_

Mandy sat up, and immediately wished she hadn't. Searing pain shot up her spine and through her head. She looked blearily around her. She could tell she was in a hospital. An oxygen mask was held firmly to her face by an elastic strap. She put her hand to her head and tried to make the dizziness subside. The door opened. A tall young man with blonde hair walked in.

"Good morning, Mandy." He said. "My name is Andrew. I'm your doctor."

Mandy shook her head. "My doctor?"

Andrew smiled. "You were unconscious last night when they brought you in, so you wouldn't know. This is the first anyone here has see you awake."

Mandy stared at him. "What happened?"

Andrew looked at her apprehensively. "That's what I need you to tell me. I need to know exactly what you remember."

Mandy looked at her sheet. "The house. The fire. The beams were falling. There was a child. I heard her crying. I got into her room. I found her under the bed. I held her in my arms. She asked me where her Mommy was..."

_-Flashback-_

_Mandy heard the crack from the board what seemed like only seconds before it hit them. A searing flash of pain ripped through her body. She heard the little girl cry out in pain and fear. Mandy pulled her helmet off and hit the "pager" on her belt to signal to the truck outside that she needed help. She held the little girl tighter. She could see that the little girl was starting to fall asleep._

"_What's your name?" Mandy asked_

"_Faith. Where's Mommy?"_

"_Mommy can't come. So I'm going to take care of you until some doctors get here."_

"_I'm sleepy." Faith said drowsily._

"_I know, Faith, but sweetie you can't go to sleep right now."_

"_How come?" she asked. _

"_We have to stay awake until those doctors get here." Mandy said_

"_So we can tell them where to put the Band-Aids?" Faith asked_

_Mandy bit her lip "Yes, Faith. That's exactly it."_

_Faith smiled. "Okay." _

_Another beam fell outside the room, followed by a roar of flames. Faith wrapped her arms around Mandy's shoulders._

"_I'm scared!" she cried._

_Mandy held Faith tightly to her._

"_Its okay to be afraid, sweetie."_

_Faith laid her head on Mandy's shoulder, her thumb in her mouth._

_Mandy looked up towards the sky as the wall just outside the door caved in._

"_Please, God, help us." She whispered_

_Beside them, unseen, Andrew appeared, glowing softly. He put his hand on Mandy's shoulder._

"_It's going to be okay, Mandy." He said, "God will protect you."_

_As one of the walls of the room caved in, two or three other firemen ran into the room._

"_Mandy!" they yelled. They lifted the beam off Mandy and Faith. _

_The two girls were carried out into the cool night air and laid in the grass. Two gurneys were brought over. Mandy looked weakly at Faith as the gurneys were wheeled in opposite directions. _

_Mandy stared at the white ceiling of the ambulance. She closed her eyes._

_-End flashback_-

Mandy looked at Andrew and recounted the previous nights events as she remembered them. Andrew smiled.

"Okay, you don't seem to suffer any amnesia from the accident. That is a very good sign."

"Where is Faith?" Mandy asked

"She's upstairs, in the Pediatric Intensive Care Ward."

"How bad is she?" Mandy asked

"She's lucky." Andrew said. "If you hadn't found her when you did, chances are she wouldn't have made it."

"How bad is she?" Mandy asked

Andrew looked at her grimly. "I don't want to scare you, Mandy, but I'm not going to lie to you. She has severe damage to her spinal cord just above the waist. Chances are she'll never walk again. She inhaled a lot of smoke and ash, so she has a lot of damage to her lungs. She'll be on assistant respiration for a while. Other than that, we don't know very much of anything yet."

Mandy thought for a moment. "How bad am I?" she finally asked.

Andrew smiled. "You've got a few bruised ribs, some minor cuts and burns, and slight lung irritation from the smoke. But if all goes well, you can be released tomorrow."

Andrew took a pocket watch from his coat, which reminded Mandy of something.

"Andrew, in the left pocket of the jacket on my suite, there is a star. Where is it?"

Andrew reached into a bin beside her bed. He pulled out the charred, battered star. Mandy smiled.

"It was on the family's Christmas tree," she explained. "I removed it from the rubble when I first entered the house."

Andrew smiled. "I have to go check on some other patients. Get some rest, Mandy."

Andrew put his hand on her arm before turning and walking out.


	3. Chapter Three

Chapter Three 

_-Community General Hospital; December 21-_

Mandy and Andrew walked down the hallway together. They passed under a sign that read: _Pediatric Intensive Care Unit_. Mandy closed her eyes. Andrew pushed open the fourth door on the left. Mandy walked in and saw Faith lying in the bed, an emergency respirator mask held to her face. Machines beeped around her.

"We got a bit of information on her from hospital records. Her name is Faith Anna Lewis. She's four and a half. Her parents, Scott and Angela, both died in the fire. She has no other relatives."

"What's the verdict of her condition, Andrew?" Mandy asked sympathetically.

"As we thought at first, she's paralyzed from the waist down. But we found something else, Mandy, that I thought you'd want to know."

Mandy looked at Andrew. His expression was hard to read, except for the pain in his eyes.

"Faith has cystic fibrosis." Andrew explained "She already had a lot of scar tissue in her lungs. That's to say nothing about the damage from the smoke and ash inhalation."

"What are you saying?"

Andrew looked at Mandy. "I think you know what I'm saying."

Mandy sat in the chair. "Sh-she's not going to make it, is she?"

Andrew shook his head sadly. "No one in her condition could survive the damage done by the smoke and ash."

Mandy shook her head. "Ho-how much time?"

"I don't want to upset you." Andrew said

"Just tell me how much time. I need to know."

Andrew sighed. "Four to five days at the most."


	4. Chapter Four

Chapter Four 

_-Mandy's Apartment; December 22-_

"What was the point of saving her, if she's just going to die anyway?" Mandy asked angrily.

Andrew shook his head. "You gave her a chance for something else. Something neither of you will realize yet."

"What? The chance to die in a hospital bed?" she said scornfully.

Andrew put his hand on her shoulder.

"No one knows the reasons you were meant to pull that girl out of the fire. Only God knows, Mandy. He will reveal His purposes in due time."

"Don't even talk to me about God, Andrew." Mandy said, "If He wanted Faith to live, why did He give her that disease?"

"Mandy, God didn't give Faith cystic fibrosis. If He allowed her to be born with it, then He has a reason. It is not always clear why He does things, but everything is done according to plan. Even the most evil circumstances can be used to achieve great things."

"Whatever." Mandy said. "So what is His almighty plan for her if she has no family left?"

Andrew did not answer. He reached over to a table and picked up the charred star and handed it to her.

"Why did you pick this up?" he asked

"I-I don't know. I never really though about it. I just sort of did it. I mean, it was on their Christmas tree. I couldn't leave it there. It was part of something special that would never exist again."

"Just like you couldn't leave her there." Andrew said calmly, "Even if you'd have known Faith would only live for another five or six days, you still would have saved her. Why?"

"Because. I guess I couldn't have just left her, could I?"

"But you saved her. You don't know why, but you saved the burnt star from the remains of a Christmas tree."

"Is this going somewhere?" Mandy asked

Andrew looked at the star in her hand. "That is something only you can decide."

He stood up, turned and left, mumbling goodbye as he pulled on his coat and left.


	5. Chapter Five

Chapter Five 

_-Community General Hospital; December 23-_

Andrew stood in Faith's room, a sad look in his eyes. He watched Faith's chest rise and fall in labored, painful breaths. There was a knock on the door. Monica walked in.

"Hello, Andrew." She said. "I'm working with the adoption agency on the wee little girl's future living arrangements."

Andrew shook his head. "Monica, in a few days, that won't be necessary."

"Oh, Andrew." Monica said sadly. "She's so little."

"I know." He said. "That's one of the hardest parts of my job."

Andrew put his arm around Monica's shoulders. They watched Faith drift in and out of a troubled sleep.


	6. Chapter Six

Chapter Six 

_-Mandy's Apartment; December 23 (later that evening)-_

Mandy sat in the armchair in her living room, a cup of coffee beside her. The charred star sat on the table beside her coffee. She stared it uncertainly. Andrew appeared beside her.

"I know what you're thinking." He said

Mandy jumped. "How did you get in here?" she asked

Andrew revealed himself to Mandy. She cowered slightly as the orange glow lit the room.

"I am an angel, Mandy, sent to you by God."

Tears built up in Mandy's eyes.

Andrew continued. "He wants you to know that He did have a purpose for you to pull Faith from the fire that night. Do remember what we talked about after I told you Faith wasn't going to live much longer?"

"Yes," Mandy answered

"God watches you, Mandy. He knows how alone you've always felt. And that's why you pulled that little girl from the fire."

Andrew picked up the star. "He knows the things you took from the building that night will never be made what they were before. But He knows you have the power to reconstruct what they once stood for. God loves you so much, Mandy. And He loves Faith, too. Which is why He sent you to be the one to rescue her from what might have been her death."

Tears were streaming down Mandy's face. "Am I supposed t-to adopt Faith?"

Andrew smiled. "No one can tell you that you do or don't have to, that is a decision that rest with you, and you alone. But God has revealed to you His purpose, Mandy. He has given you the torch. It is up to you to decide where you and Faith shall go from here."

Mandy looked down, tears still streaming down her face. When she looked up again, Andrew was gone.

She looked at a picture on the stand. It was of her and her parents when she was about eight years old. Mandy sighed. She picked up a notebook that was also on the table and began writing.

_Dear Dad,_

Sometimes I want so much to return to the simple, carefree, days of my childhood. I sometimes want to go back to a place where Mommy's kisses healed hurts instantly, and Daddy's presence vanquished the things that scared me. I want to go back to a place where children played in magical forests and dreamed of being kings and queens, where there was no darkness, only light, and little girls didn't die.

Mandy ripped the page out of her notebook and threw it away. She looked back at the charred star on her table. She wiped her eyes, stood up, grabbed her coat, and walked out the door.

_-Adoption Agency; December 23-_

Monica stood talking with Mandy.

"Are you ready to sign the papers, Mandy?"

Mandy nodded at Monica, who set a group of papers on the desk beside them. Mandy sat down, picked up a pen, and began to sign the spaces Monica had indicated.


	7. Chapter Seven

Chapter Seven 

_-Community General Hospital; Christmas Eve-_

Monica and Mandy walked into Faith's room. Andrew was sitting beside her bed, reading her a Christmas story. He smiled at the sight of the two women.

Monica handed Andrew one of the papers that Mandy had signed. Andrew read it and smiled at Mandy. He knelt down next to Faith.

"Faith, do you remember Mandy?"

The little girl nodded.

"She has decided to take you to her house and let you live there. Do you want to live with Mandy?"

Faith nodded again.

Andrew stood up and walked over to Mandy and Monica. He pulled Mandy aside.

"She's only got a day or so left, Mandy." He said gravely.

"I know."

Andrew nodded. "When you take her, you know what will happen?"

Mandy nodded. "I'm ready."

"Okay. I'll sign the release papers. Take her home and make her comfortable."

Andrew and Monica watched, invisible, as Mandy and Faith decorated a Christmas tree. Mandy pulled a box of presents out from behind the couch, and she and Mandy began putting them under the tree. They were mostly all addressed to Faith, but neither seemed to mind. When they were finished, Mandy and Faith sat in front of the tree.

"Can you sing me a Christmas song, Mandy?" Faith asked.

"Sure. Which one?"

"Away In A Manger." Faith replied.

Mandy began to sing:

"Away in a manger

no crib for a bed

the little Lord Jesus

lay down His sweet head

The stars in the sky

Looked down where He lay

The little Lord Jesus asleep on the hay.

Be near me Lord Jesus

I ask Thee to stay

Close by forever

And love me I pray

Bless all the dear children

In Thy tender care

And take us to Heaven

To live with Thee there."

Tears were streaming down Mandy, Andrew, and Monica's faces.

"Mandy, I'm sleepy now." Faith said; her hands balled into fists, rubbing her eyes.

"Okay."

Mandy wheeled Faith into her bedroom. She lifted Faith from the wheelchair and lay her in her bed. She kissed Faith's forehead and tucked her in. Walking out of the room, she turned out the light, praying that Faith could hold on until the next night.


	8. Chapter Eight

Chapter Eight 

_-Mandy's Apartment; Christmas Day-_

Mandy and Faith were in front of the Christmas tree. Faith's eyes shone with excitement.

"Are all these for me?" she asked.

"Most of them." Mandy answered

There was a knock on the door. Mandy went to the door and opened it. Monica and Andrew stood there, both holding a stuffed animal each.

"Merry Christmas, Mandy." Monica said.

Mandy smiled. "Merry Christmas to you, too." She said. She stood aside. "Please. Come in."

Monica and Andrew entered the apartment. They followed Mandy into the living room where they happily presented the stuffed animals to Faith.

"Merry Christmas, Faith." Andrew said

"Merry Christmas." Faith echoed.

Andrew and Monica watched as Faith, with Mandy's help, tore open all the presents. But no one could help notice that each rip of wrapping paper, and each squeal of delight, was weaker than the last. Monica looked at Andrew, who nodded to tell her that soon it would be time for Faith to go home.

When all the presents were finished, Faith was lifted from her wheelchair and placed on the floor amongst the presents, where she soon fell asleep among them.

Andrew, Monica, and Mandy sat and talked for an hour or so. Monica looked at the tree as Faith began to cough in her sleep.

"Oh. Andrew, look!" she said, but when she turned, Andrew was no longer sitting next to her. He was kneeling on the floor, beside Faith, and he had begun to glow slightly. Faith opened her eyes, still coughing, and looked at Andrew.

"It's time to go home, Faith." He said.

Faith nodded and took Andrew's hand. Monica and Mandy looked on, both with tears in their eyes.

"Andrew," Mandy said, "Can I say goodbye first?"

Andrew nodded. Mandy knelt by Faith's side.

"Goodbye, little baby." She said.

"Mandy," Faith said, "Will-will you sing m-me the last verse of A-Away in a Manger?"

"Of course, baby." Mandy said.

"Be near me Lord Jesus

I ask Thee to stay

Close by me forever

And love me I pray

Bless all the dear children

In Thy tender care

And take us to Heaven

To live with Thee there."

By the time Mandy finished the song Andrew had taken Faith home. Mandy sat on the floor crying. Monica sat beside her. Mandy laid her head on Monica's shoulder and cried.

Monica looked back at the Christmas tree. Atop the tree, rested a charred, brass star.

_****_

_****_

_****_

_**And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, **_

_**shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.**_

_**-Philippians 4:7**_


End file.
